Adrien Inacio

M.Sc. at the University of Montpellier

Co-supervised byJulie DeterandSonia Kéfi

 

Spread in Mediterranean coastal areas, the seagrass,Posidonia oceanica, forms meadows that are a key habitat of the Mediterranean Sea, at the origin of numerous ecosystem services. Highly sensitive to the quality of their environment, this seagrass is used like a bioindicateurs of coastal water quality. The habitats formed byPosidonia oceanicahave been mapped, all along the Mediterranean French coast, byAndromède océanologiein 2014.

The cross-checking of anthropogenic coastal pressures and old data of the seagrass distribution will permit to develop landscape configuration indices. These tools will be used to study the relative influence of anthropogenic and natural pressures, to measure the actual state of this habitat and to predict its evolution. This work will help making decisions for the conservation of marine resources, e.g. deciding which preservation action to take.